Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of people in (a) Mid Cheshire constituency, (b) Cheshire and (c) England who have unmet care needs; and what steps his Department is taking to help ensure those care needs are met.

Local authorities are responsible for assessing individuals’ care and support needs and, where eligible, for meeting those needs. Where individuals do not meet the eligibility threshold, they can get support from their local authorities in making their own arrangements for care services, as set out in the Care Act 2014.

We recognise that there are challenges in adult social care, with people needing to fight a complicated system or go without the care they need. Lord Darzi’s report indicated a growing gap between requests and those receiving publicly funded care, and the number of people receiving long term care decreased between 2015/16 and 2022/23. There is limited information on self-funders who arrange their own care.

Long-term reform is needed in adult social care. We will work with the sector to build consensus for a National Care Service, based on consistent national standards, to support people in living independent and dignified lives.

In the interim, Care Quality Commission (CQC) local authority assessments consider the performance of the delivery of the Care Act 2014 duties, including the timeliness of assessing care needs. If the CQC identifies that a local authority has failed or is failing its functions to an acceptable standard, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has powers to intervene. The CQC has published its first nine local authority ratings and reports.